Criminal complaints filed against Filipino rebels
Police are seeking murder and kidnapping charges against members of a Muslim rebel faction for a rampage that killed dozens of combatants and forced thousands of villagers to flee in the southern Philippines last month, officials said on Wednesday.
Police forwarded criminal complaints to prosecutors in southern Maguindanao province this week against Ameril Umbra Kato, a hardline Muslim rebel leader with alleged links to key Asian terror suspects, and at least 113 other commanders and fighters of the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Movement, national police investigation chief Director Samuel Pagdilao said.
Kato’s forces broke off last year from the larger Moro Islamic Liberation Front, which has been engaged in peace talks with the government for years.
Kato opposes the Malaysian-brokered negotiations, arguing that the talks have gone nowhere. He has vowed to continue a bloody rebellion for a separate homeland for minority Muslims in the south of the predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines.
After breaking off from the Moro group, Kato’s forces initially kept a low profile in their mountain encampments of Maguindanao, a violent region about 900 kilometres south of Manila, and he had a stroke in November, throwing uncertainty over his group.
However, on August 5, about 200 armed fighters from Kato’s groups launched rifle, grenade and mortar attacks against more than a dozen army camps and outposts along a key highway in Maguindanao and in nearby North Cotabato province, killing six soldiers, a police officer and at least two civilians.
A weeks-long army offensive that followed killed about 50 of Kato’s fighters and led to the capture of his main encampment and smaller strongholds in Maguindanao before sporadic fighting subsided, according to the military.
During the attacks, Kato’s forces looted farming villages, burned houses and briefly held villagers hostage to keep advancing troops away, officials said.
The ailing Kato and his commanders remain at large and were being hunted by troops and police, Pagdilao said.
US and Philippine security officials suspect that Kato has provided support and refuge to key Southeast Asian terror suspects, including Basit Usman, a Filipino militant long wanted for deadly bombings in the south and his alleged links to the regional militant network Jemaah Islamiyah. Washington has offered a US$1 million reward for the capture or killing of Usman, a bomb-making expert.
Kato, in past interviews, has denied Usman was with his rebel faction or that he had worked with him to launch terror attacks.
